Bainsley

I have been working on a sans serif typeface, the current working title is 'Bainsley'. It started out as Cadman but I was struggling to get the look I wanted so I lifted a set of Numerals, a to z and A to Z from another font (after asking permission of course) and from that point on I made very good progress.

The italic, bold and bold italic are not yet ready to preview.

As it stands at the moment the upper case doesn't really harmonise with the lower case so I am thinking of rounding off a few corners on the upper case.

It feels a bit odd with /8 pinching itself while /6, /9, and /e are more open. It also seems odd that the /§ (neat as a direction as it may be) stands out stylistically from everything else with its squared-off spines. Maybe round it a little more alongside your capitals, or add more of a blend between rounded and angular forms in general to deviate further from the font it was derived from (unless it already has deviated a lot from the font pulled from).

Edit: Ah, I should have checked for updated comments before posting. The /§ does feel out of place though. To my eyes at least.

I was hoping there would be some speculation as to which typeface
it was as they have been modified a bit. It would heve been quite
amusing but I guess that is a non starter now.

Sorry, that didn't look like a call for speculations.

As for the sample: It has definitely changed a lot from Ysabeau, I probably wouldn't have noticed the lineage myself!

I like the general look of it. It's friendly and cuddly. I like the generous /a/ and how other letters refer to it.

I'm getting a strong vibe of inconsistency, though. There's a lot of ideas in individual letters that don't seem to be supported by the rest of the typeface: The extreme thinning in /K/, for example, or the gap in /e/. There's some weight inconsistency as well; e.g., the /H/ feels lighter than the following /I/, and the /O/ than the preceding /N/. The descenders also don't seem to agree on a descender depth.

On the individual glyph level, /U/, /W/, and /w/ feel too wide and /R/ and /Y/ too narrow to me. The /e/ looks too small for some reason.

The tail of /q/ doesn't work for me either, but I believe that's an American thing, so it might look more normal to Americans? In any case, it attaches too much weight to the descender in my opinion; I'd make it more subtle.

I like the general look of it. It's friendly and cuddly. I like the generous /a/ and how other letters refer to it.

I'm getting a strong vibe of inconsistency, though. There's a lot of ideas in individual letters that don't seem to be supported by the rest of the typeface: The extreme thinning in /K/, for example, or the gap in /e/. There's some weight inconsistency as well; e.g., the /H/ feels lighter than the following /I/, and the /O/ than the preceding /N/. The descenders also don't seem to agree on a descender depth.

On the individual glyph level, /U/, /W/, and /w/ feel too wide and /R/ and /Y/ too narrow to me. The /e/ looks too small for some reason.

The tail of /q/ doesn't work for me either, but I believe that's an American thing, so it might look more normal to Americans? In any case, it attaches too much weight to the descender in my opinion; I'd make it more subtle.

There is a little inconsistency but this is a first iteration. I have tried to even out the weights and gaps a little.

I agree the /K/ seemed like a good idea at the time but I will have to tinker with it to make it fit in a bit better.

The tail of the /q/ isn't an American thing, it's a handwriting thing. The way I scrawl the /q/ always gets a little upward flick of the pen just as the pen is lifting from the paper. It's how I was taught to write and has become a habit. Also the tail helps distinguish the /q/ from a mirrored /p/. This is irrelavant to most people but to people who have dyslexia it helps legibility. I have decreased it somewhat in the next iteration.

It feels a bit odd with /8 pinching itself while /6, /9, and /e are more open. It also seems odd that the /§ (neat as a direction as it may be) stands out stylistically from everything else with its squared-off spines. Maybe round it a little more alongside your capitals, or add more of a blend between rounded and angular forms in general to deviate further from the font it was derived from (unless it already has deviated a lot from the font pulled from).

Edit: Ah, I should have checked for updated comments before posting. The /§ does feel out of place though. To my eyes at least.

/§/ It seemed like a good idea at the time to have a little diagonal square with curves coming off the top right and bottom left sides. I still think it is a good idea but you are right it doesn't fit the font very well, I will have to tinker around with it a little and see what I can come up with.

The tail of the /q/ isn't an American thing, it's a handwriting thing.
The way I scrawl the /q/ always gets a little upward flick of the pen
just as the pen is lifting from the paper. It's how I was taught to
write

And the way I was taught to write, the /q/'s offstroke starts at the baseline (or at least follows the stem up until about there).

That flick from the descender line is very alien to my eyes, but I've seen it a lot in American designs.

It looks like you're using subtle flaring in /T/, /i/ — might that be a solution for your capital /I/, instead of the serifs? I agree with Craig that they go against the cuddly feel of the typeface, even when rounded.

I have the upward offstroke at the lowest point of the /q’s descender in my handwriting as well, however that is for a “regular” /q, for a cursive /q I was taught as Christian illustrated (whether with a looping or straight descender). Perhaps try rounding the left point of the descender and let the offstroke taper to be a little more pointy (like the pointyness of your /t or eye of the /e).

I liked the idea of the first /§ as well, so maybe store it away to be refined for another project.

You may want to check /P and /R as well. I agree with Christian about the /I and /J.

The latest iteration has flares added to the Upper case but I feel like it's moving away from the direction I wanted to go in. The upper case is starting to look a lot like Friz Quadrata. The section sign has been re done with a circle in the middle instead of a square but it has lost it's character, this one looks like just about every other section sign.

You don't necessarily need flares everywhere, just where you would have had serifs before. Would that look weird together with unflared caps?

The /M/ now looks less confident with the round apices IMHO.

Looks like your descenders are more consistent now, but /f/ is still going only half way.

The half-vertical sides of /V/W/Y/ strike me as at odds with your other diagonal letters. Something continuous like the sides of /A/ might work better for those. /V/Y/ still look too narrow and /W/ too wide (or too hollow?).

If you're going for a humanist touch, how about turning the one-sided flares of /v/w/ on the right-hand stem inside rather than outside?

The lobes just needed a little adjustment of the narrow space under their counters, looks like you got it. Yes, you needn’t go completely circular with the section sign, the first iteration felt off from the rest of the typeface, but the second a better direction for further refinement. Examine similar curve situations on letters such as /B, /D, /E, /G... You may be able to pull off some of the pointed-then-curved situations like the tops of /B, /D, and /E.

As for solving the disparity between uppercase and lowercase, which is currently closer to the look you are going for, or perhaps what aspects of each seem strongest towards the look you seek, if you can say. Maybe try the same point then curve technique I mentioned to other uppercase letters such as /M, /V, and /W, as that happens a lot in your lowercase and could take some squareness away without being too rounded (as per the lacking confidence of the previous /M).

This iteration more closely resembles what I was after. I have rounded the ends of the upper case but not enough to count as a bone serif. Any comments, criticisms or suggestions would be most welcome.

The few sharp horizontal cuts in the lowercase would probably also profit from some subtle rounding.

How about trying a /q/ tail with the weight and size of the /l/ tail?

If you want the typeface to be widely usable, I'd at least offer a «tamed» stylistic alternate with a closed /e/, a fully descending /f/, and tailless /q/.

As for the /section/, I find the square counter charming, but the overall size and width of the glyph is rather puny. In my experience, stacking two staggered /S/ is a good starting point to get the proportions right.

I was thinking of a stylistic alternative with two storey /a and /g so I could include a closed /e and /ə in that. The /f will remain as it is or maybe a little more descent (but not full depth) because I like it that way.

I will tinker about with the /q tail and see what looks appropriate.

The /K does need 'something' but at the moment I don't know what 'something' might look like.

I find this typeface to be one that breaks new ground, entering into the gap between conventional sans-serif and Roman typefaces on the one hand, and overtly calligraphic typefaces on the other, so I applaud the experimentation.

I find this typeface to be one that breaks new ground, entering into the gap between conventional sans-serif and Roman typefaces on the one hand, and overtly calligraphic typefaces on the other, so I applaud the experimentation.

Probably the reason this breaks new ground is that I'm an Electronics Engineer not a typographer. Kelvinch was my first font ever. Basically if you don't know what you are doing you can do anything you like without following the rules.

Munson was because I wanted a decent quality free Clarendon and there wasn't one, and Cadman started out as SIL's Andika font but modified to include all the tips for legibility from the book 'Reading Letters' by Sofie Beier and also taking advice from a friend and a colleague who are both dyslexic on what works best for them.